


through the trees, lost amongst weeds

by Arcane_Apparition



Series: OTP: Gentle Giants [6]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Abby’s panicking, Anxiety Attacks, Comfort, Cryptid Hunting, F/M, Sibling MC!AU, and learns he’s dating a nerd, so Nate helps out, this is a non-detective MC, ‘Female detective’ tag used for ease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:35:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29491410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arcane_Apparition/pseuds/Arcane_Apparition
Summary: “Very into them, from what I can see.” He says softly, a breath of a laugh at the sheer amount of it all, gently thumbing through the pile that had been dropped on his lap. “This had to be a time-consuming effort.” Hours alone could’ve been lost into making up a single folder, considering the newspaper clippings and specific book pages, along with their own notes.She shrugs, giving a noncommittal hum. “Two kids with no parental supervision. We had a lot of time to kill.”———Also known as, Abby goes into an anxiety-induced cleaning mode, destroying her apartment, and Nate sticks around to help, getting a chance to learn a little bit about her in the process.
Relationships: Female Detective/Nathaniel "Nate" Sewell
Series: OTP: Gentle Giants [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042041
Kudos: 8





	through the trees, lost amongst weeds

“You don’t have to stay, you know.” Abby offers, again. The same offer she’d made three times now, in the short span of ten minutes. As if she was still expecting Nate to change his mind. As if the clutter surrounding them would manage to run him off.

But he just gives her a gentle smile, hoping to quell the stress he can see brewing just under the surface. “As I said, I don’t mind.” He repeats as well, nothing but genuine in his word. He looks around, makes a show of taking in the clutter that’s scattered on every available surface. “And this would seem to be the kind of job that is better suited for two.”

“I mean, you don’t-“ She stops, huffs out a breath as she rubs the back of her neck. He wants to cross the room and take her in his arms, chase away the strain he sees in her body, but knows doing so right now will just push her further away. “I doubt this is how you planned on spending your Friday night. I made this mess, I’ll- I can fix it.”

She wasn’t wrong in that regard, at least. This certainly wasn’t the scene he was expecting to walk in on when he decided to stop by and check on her. A check-in brought on by the fact she’d abruptly called to let them know she wouldn’t be back at the Warehouse that night, instead staying at her place - an oddity in itself, considering she’d all but moved into her room in the Warehouse.

A good change, really. They’d done what they could to ensure the Brùn sisters were comfortable there when they stayed with them. And sometime, during the months of them settling in, Abby had quietly chosen to make a home there rather than in her apartment. Not that he minded - quite the opposite: it was a sort of excitement that had made a place in his chest, beating alongside his heart. Having her close by, safe. And that she felt comfortable enough to call their home her own as well.

(Though, it is also an excitement he’s had to temper in Farah as well, because he knows this is a precarious balance they’ve struck. Abby has taken the tentative steps to find a home amongst them - the slightest upset to that balance, it being brought up in any capacity, will have her withdrawing again)

This was why, when she’d called and announced her plan to stay in town, he’d been…concerned. And decided it would be best to stop by and see if she was alright. There was so much happening - too much. Bounties and kidnappings and lurking threats, he worries about the stress.

And considering he found her surrounded by a self-induced mess, with every cabinet and cupboard emptied, he knew he was right to worry. 

He doesn’t push though. He can’t, no matter how much he may want to. Cutting directly to whatever has her so worked up is likely to have her shut him out entirely. Her stubborn refusal to share her worries -(or maybe a habit she’s carried with her, something she learned young that she hasn’t let go)- makes situations like this more akin to a dance. She steps left, he’ll follow to the right. Working around one another, waiting for her to be ready to meet him.

So he forces himself to pretend as if he doesn’t notice anything. Pretend as if he doesn’t see the restless twitching of her fingers, that need to move and control something. Or the uneasy look in her eyes that has her scanning the room. He lets her keep her illusion of secrecy, and offers his help in any way she’ll accept. 

“I’m not trying to rope you into cleaning my apartment.” Though, this is a battle she’s hellbent on not backing down for. 

“I know, but I’m offering.” His smile doesn’t falter. He just tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans, rocking back on his heels as her eyes narrow. Watching him, searching for something, and he’s content to let her look.

“I’m turning my music on.” A different approach. She says it as if it’s some sort of negative. 

Her taste in music may be quite the opposite to his own, but that isn’t enough to send him back out the door. “That’s fine with me.”

“This will probably take up most of the night.”

“Then it’s best that we both work together, isn’t it?” _That_ earns him an actual glare, though he catches the slight twitch at the corners of her mouth. Finally, she sighs, and the tension rushes from her body. 

“Fine, the sooner we start, the sooner this is done.”

They settle into a routine with ease. He’ll bring out crates and boxes, digging through them and holding up whatever he finds for her appraisal. From there, they get sorted into three piles: trash, donation, and keep. Most, if not all of what they find, goes to the trash, much of it being old papers. Multiple copies of various first drafts of her articles meant for the paper, others were drafts that had been scrapped entirely. Essays and notes from her college years. She waves them off without so much as a second glance, and he follows her orders, despite his own curiosity tugging at the edges of his mind.

Literary analysis. Debate notes. Articles from her early years at the Wayhaven Press. Hours of work - and tiny glimpses of Abby he wishes he could take the time to see. 

Eventually, they settle on splitting up, taking opposite ends of the room. He’s given the small closet in the hall, and she takes on the task of clearing and sorting her bookshelves - shelves that have come to house more junk mail and scraps of trash than books. Outside of the music from her radio filling the room, and Abby’s own humming, a silence settles between them, broken only by the occasional thump of something being tossed into its designated pile.

The closet is bare outside of storage, for the most part. Any clothes or items she may have wanted are nowhere to be seen, likely already having found a place at the Warehouse.

(That thought brings a wave of warmth over him, and has him smiling to himself at the image of her slowly making her room there her own)

Now, it’s stacked nearly to the ceiling with boxes - stained and frayed with age. Obviously, whatever she’s packed away hasn’t been moved in some time, and will most likely be destined to the dumpster. But, he takes a seat on the floor and pulls them out one-by-one, carefully prying them open to sift through the contents.

“May I ask why you keep all of your mail?” He asks after the second box of useless scraps - coupons that have long-lived past their expiration dates, empty envelopes. He holds up a fist full of rolled up magazines, aged to the point they’re almost entirely illegible. “Why don’t you just throw these away if you don’t need them?”

Her head peeks out from around the other side of the couch, her mess of blonde curls and eyes the only things visible from this angle. “I dunno. I keep them in case I need them.”

“Need them for what, exactly? Kindling?”

He hears her snort of laughter more than he can see it. “I’ll never be without tinder. Good for the winter, right?”

He rolls his eyes, tossing the magazines back into their box, “For all those life-threatening blizzards Wayhaven suffers through, I’m sure.” He says, closing it up again. “Trash?” His response is just a thumbs up, her head vanishing from view once more. A phone book is lobbed across the room, missing the trash pile and sliding somewhere in the kitchen.

With that box pushed off to the side, he slides the next one towards him. This one brings him to a halt. It’s in rough shape, but unlike the previous boxes, it seems to have been worn down by _use_. The top flaps are dented from being opened and closed repeatedly, the corners split and held together with tape. While the other boxes had been left to fall apart, this one obviously had been cared about enough to try and be fixed

It’s also the first one he’s found that’s been written on. Tilting it to try and get a better view, he can barely make out the faintest words written in looping, messy handwriting:

**_Abby + Maeve: monster hunting files_ **

Curiosity piqued, he pulls this one open with care. Inside is stuffed full of folders of all different colors, age fading them a little. Reaching in, he scoops out the folder at the top of the pile, the words _‘Wayhaven Dogman’_ scrawled across the front in the same large handwriting, and he can’t resist flipping it open.

Inside, the first thing he finds are various newspaper clippings, all as old as the box itself had to be but, thankfully, some survived the years. _‘Dogman Spotted’, ‘Potential Dogman Attack’_ , and ‘ _Local ‘Dogman’ Legend Supposedly Spotted by Owners of Missing Pets_ ’ were the few titles he could make out the easiest. Behind these were pages that had obviously been torn from their books in haste, all stapled together. Different legends, some local to the town itself, others discussing various shapeshifters. All with the running theme of some sort of canine beast. All of these scraps of paper were full of underlines and notes throughout the margins. 

It’s the final contents of the folder that really catches his attention: a handmade, and painstakingly detailed information page. The supposed height and weight of this ‘Dogman’, various descriptions, potential sightings. It’s - shockingly similar to the information pages the Agency uses as well. Held to this page with a rusted paperclip is a small collection of Polaroids, and he has to gently pry the clip back to get them loose. 

There’s one of the ground - it’s what he _thinks_ is supposed to be a footprint in the mud, though it mostly looks like a hole in the dirt, the flash of the camera making it hard to see. 

The next two are about as innocuous as the first. A few broken planks in a wooden fence, and a door to what looks like a run-down shed that has cracks running through it.

The last one has two young girls in it, posing in front of a chain link fence, arms looped around one another, bright-eyed and grinning. 

It’s easy to tell the smaller of the duo is Maeve, still having the same long red hair he’d come to recognize. The only difference is here, it’s done in a messy braid, various clips and colored pins glinting in the light of the camera flash. Abby is less recognizable - with a head of wild blonde curls here, reaching well past her shoulders. Scrapes and bandages dot her arms and face.

Both of them have the same look: bright-eyed, grinning. Unbothered. 

“Abby?” Nate calls out, half-distracted but finally able to somewhat drag his attention from the apparent case file in his hands, “What are these?”

“What’re what?” She answers. A thunk, a muttered curse under her breath as she clambers over the mess and furniture in her way, coming to crouch down beside him. She leans in a little just as he holds the folder out to her, and there’s a brief pause before she’s _laughing_.

“I thought I lost these!” She wheezes, finally catching her breath as she leans over him to dig further into the box, “I thought- I never remembered where these went when I moved!”

“What-“ He tries again to ask, only to have file after file dropped on his lap. Bigfoot, Bloody Mary, Werewolf. All labeled after different urban legends and supernatural entities -some beings of myth, quite a few _not_. All were the same weight as the Dogman file, no doubt full of the same levels of research. “What is all this?”

She’s stopped, flipping through one folder in particular -he thinks he catches a glimpse of the word ‘Mermaid’ before it’s turned out of sight. “Maeve and I were….sort of into cryptids, growing up.” She answers with a shrug, a fond smile still on her face as she skims through the papers. 

“ _Very_ into them, from what I can see.” He says softly, a breath of a laugh at the sheer amount of it all, gently thumbing through the pile that had been dropped on his lap. “This had to be a time-consuming effort.” Hours alone could’ve been lost into making up a single folder, considering the newspaper clippings and specific book pages, along with their own notes.

She shrugs, giving a noncommittal hum. “Two kids with no parental supervision. We had a lot of time to kill.”

“Why such the dedicated fascination?” He regrets the question as soon as he asks it. Her smile fades, replaced by a flash of pain before she’s schooling her expression again. Setting the folder down, he watches her busy herself with the box once more. 

He’d spoken without thought, wanting nothing more than a chance to learn about her. There’s still so much of her past she keeps buried away, a mystery she’s locked away. But in his own chase to know her, he’d foolishly struck something raw. 

He goes to apologize, wanting nothing more than the push back the hurt he’d brought on, but, to his surprise, she cuts him off before he has a chance to find the words. 

“My dad.” She’s still not looking at him, but he sees the shadow of a smile on her face. Faint, barely noticeable, but there all the same. “He would make up stories. Read folkstore and mythology books. I guess it sort of stuck with me, and the interest carried on to Maeve.” The conversation lulls as she picks at the edge of a page, as if neither can find the right thing to say. It’s rare to hear her speak about her father, and he’s not sure what can be said that won’t hurt.

So, choosing his words carefully, he guides the conversation to something else. “May I ask what the photos are?” Clearly a safer topic, her smile brightens again. She grabs the _Mermaid_ folder once more and flips to the back, gently tugging this new stack of photos free. 

“We’d go on investigations, I guess you could call them.” She chuckles, flicking a finger in the direction of the box, “Hence the whole ‘Monster Hunters’ thing. We’d do a bunch of research, put these files together, then would sneak out after curfew to try and catch our own evidence.” She’s explaining the photos, but from the look in her eyes it’s clear her mind is miles away, flipping through the photos before handing them off for him to see. He takes them as gingerly as possible, treating them as he would one of his own antique books.

This batch was taken at the edge of a body of water; a piece of sea glass resting in a tiny palm. A bed of kelp and moss. The edge of a dock. The last has them both again, a lake serving as the backdrop this time, taken at an odd slant -had they propped the camera on something? Found a branch to set it on? 

Maeve is hanging off Abby’s back, her gap-toothed smile wider than the last photo he’d seen, clearly caught mid-laugh. Abby’s face is scrunched, tongue stuck out at the camera in place of a smile of her own. 

Turning them over, he doesn’t spot any writing. No dates to give away the age of these pictures. “How old were you?”

Abby has moved as they’ve slowly emptied the box, sitting down beside him rather than the crouched position she’d been in. Pressed against his side now, he watches as she meticulously lays the folders out side-by-side. “I think I was 10? 11?” There’s 25 different files in total by the time she reaches the bottom. He tucks the photos away just as she starts to flip through one labeled _‘Sawmill Poltergeist_ ’. “Maeve would’ve been about 7, I guess.”

It doesn’t come as a surprise that they were so young. Fiercely independent and driven by curiosity, chasing childhood ideas of monsters and mythical beings. They still had that drive, even as adults, to a stubborn degree. Leave it to them to run after things that might be in the dark.

The level of work that went into their investigations is impressive, if anything. Some of these files could rival the work he’s seen at the Agency. The research is thorough - it’s easy to picture the pair of them spending hours scouring bookshops and libraries, building up their cases. 

“Nate?” Her voice brings him out of his thoughts. She’d stopped her reading to glance up at him, one brow raised. “Everything okay?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but is suddenly finding himself speechless. There’s - so much he wants to say. He wants to thank her, for sharing this. For trusting him with this piece of her past. But saying such things usually leaves her flustered and wanting to change the subject. “I’m just impressed.” He says, settling for a different truth. “And...shocked, I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every time I think I’m close to finally figuring you out, you end up surprising me.” He smiles, motioning towards the box. “The level of work you two put into his, as children, really is remarkable.”

“You’re surprised about this, really?” She laughs, knocking her shoulder against his as he reaches out to take her hand in his. “You’ve _seen_ my tattoos. You’re telling me you’re _surprised_ that somebody with Mothman and the Loch Ness Monster permanently etched on their body was way too into cryptids as a kid?”

He meets her grin with one of his own, bringing her hand up to brush a kiss along her knuckles. “No, the topic itself is certainly no surprise, But the dedication you put into all this. You two had more focus as children then I can get from Morgan and Farah _now_.”

“What a roundabout way of calling us nerds.” She laughs, and before he can defend himself, she’s dropping another file in his hands, “Wanna see our file on the mayor when we were convinced he had a doppelgänger?”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to find me at @agentnatesewells-manbun on tumblr!


End file.
